Party of Three
by MetaphoricalBox
Summary: Locke, Ben, and Hurley are roommates in a mysterious apartment. They must face coporate espionage, a paranormal appliance, and the nefarious Ben Initiative. Slight crack.


**Authors' Note: **This is first chapter of the first fanfic co-written by Sakura Katana and The Hash Slinging Slasher. It's going to be epic, so **please review!**

**Disclaimer: **We don't own _Lost_.

Hurley took a bite of his cereal. He avoided the naturally horrifying gaze of Ben Linus, who was sitting across the table from him. After a dose of silence larger than medically recommended, Hurley asked, "Good toast?"

Ben gave his toast a confused glance, then looked back up at Hurley. "I'm not eating toast."

"Um, dude? Yeah, you are. There's jam on it and everything."

"No, Hugo," Ben said slowly, as if wondering how in the world the younger man could be so drastically mistaken. "I'm eating the same brand of cereal that you are."

"Are you totally sure about that?" Hurley asked, slipping dangerously close to confusion.

Ben increased the intensity of his stare. "Are _you_ totally sure, Hugo?"

"Uh-"

"He's eating toast," Locke said, entering the kitchen, hunting knife in hand.

"Good morning, John," said Ben, "How was your hunt?"

"Dude! You lied to me!" Hurley exclaimed at the small but terrifying man. "And I haven't finished breakfast yet!"

"Unsuccessful," replied Locke. He shook his head. "Unsuccessful."

"Hmm. But I was so sure..." Ben trailed off mysteriously.

"Were you sure, Ben? _Were you? _Because I don't know if I can trust you anymore!" Hurley said.

Locke smiled wryly. "You probably shouldn't have trusted him in the first place."

Hurley sighed. "You're right. I just thought, you know, since we're all roommates now..."

_¡__FLASHBACK!_

The red car pulled into the parking lot of apartment building 51B. Hugo "Hurley" Reyes stepped out of it and almost bumped into -

"Locke?" Hurley said incredulously.

"Hello, Hugo," Locke greeted. "I didn't think I'd see you here."

"Yeah, man, me neither. I'm checking out this apartment I just bought, making sure the old owner didn't leave any stuff behind or anything."

"In this building?"

"Yeah."

"What a coincidence. I also just bought an apartment in this building."

Hurley smiled. "Cool. We'll be, like, neighbors."

They started to walk toward the building. "I'm surprised that you're not living in mansion, or at least a penthouse," Locke remarked. "Since you are the CEO of Mr. Cluck's now. Besides winning the lottery."

"Yeah, I gave my mansion to my parents," Hurley said. He shrugged. "I don't know, I just don't think living like a rich guy is really my thing."

They reached the building. It was painted in a very non-menacing color scheme. Almost too non-menacing.

"Interesting choice of color scheme," Locke said, as they stepped into the elevator.

"What do you-"

An explosion interrupted Hurley's question, which otherwise would have ended "mean, dude?". It sounded as though it had come from above. A tile of the elevator ceiling slid away, and Benjamin Linus dropped in. He was wearing his cool black jacket, which meant he had been doing super awesome stuff that would appear to be morally grey at first, but would then turn out to be for the greater good. But still kind of morally grey.

He took a large handgun from his belt and fired several shots through the hole he had left in the ceiling. "You're going to have to do better than that next time, Charles," shouted Ben, holstering his gun. Then he noticed the other passengers of the elevator. "Oh, hello John, Hugo," he said, nodding at them.

"What was that?" asked Hurley, his heart still pounding from the unexpected action violence.

"What was what?" Ben replied blandly. "Oh, good. You two are also going to the second floor, I see. I was just headed there myself."

"Oh, really," said Locke, suspicion coloring his tone.

Ben looked indignantly at the taller, balder man. "Yes, I happen to be visiting the apartment I just bought. I don't see why that should color your tone with suspicion."

The elevator stopped, and the door opened. All three men stepped out and started heading the same direction down the hallway. After a few minutes, they stopped in front of the same apartment. They all pulled keys out of their pockets.

"Um, why do you guys have keys to my apartment?" Hurley asked. He noticed that he was getting that feeling he got whenever something really weird was going to happen. He wondered if it was somehow going to start raining inside the building.

"I think the better question is why do you two have keys to _my _apartment?" Ben said.

"I could ask the same thing," said Locke, "but rewording the same question for a third time is bordering on sloppy dialogue, and this isn't a Kate flashback."

Hurley's eyes widened. "Whoa. Did anybody else just get the urge to start running?"

Locke continued, "Are you both sure that the apartment you bought was number 481?"

Before either of the men could answer, a familiar drunken Scotsman burst out the door, almost knocking Ben over. (Later, Ben would get revenge for this by destroying a small portion of Scotland.)

"It's all bloody real, brotha!" Desmond shouted. Then he noticed that there were three of them. "Brethren!" He sprinted down the hallway shouting, "It's all bloody real!"

"Huh," was all Hurley could think of to say.

_¡__UNFLASHBACK!_

Locke nodded. "I can see why you would think that, Hugo. This apartment has some powerful qualities, but apparently encouraging honesty is not one of them."

_¡__FLASHBACK!_

"Now it makes more sense why this apartment seemed to cost about a third of its actual value," Locke said, now inside the very respectable apartment. "Look at the address."

He held out a scrap of lined paper that had been in his pocket. It read:

_New apartment - #481 building 51B Palm Tree Apartment Complex, Island St. 62342_

"Holy crap, dudes!" Hurley shouted. "It's the numbers!"

Ben nodded. "It does appear to be, as you say, the numbers. How interesting."

"We can't live here; nobody should live here!" Hurley said, starting towards the door.

Locke stopped him. "No, we have to live here. Haven't you noticed by now the numbers lead us not to our doom, but to our destiny?"

"'Doom' and 'destiny' are both synonyms for fate," Ben said. "'Doom' just has negative connotations."

"See, Locke?" Hurley said. "Ben agrees with me."

"No," Ben corrected. "I agree with John."

"Dang it."

_¡__UNFLASHBACK!_

"As gripping as this conversation is," Ben said. "Has anyone noticed that the microwave has been counting down for the past 104 minutes, and with four minutes remaining on the clock, has begun to beep?"


End file.
